Of the Passion of Gambling

Character and portrait of the gambler in France and Italy of the 19th century

Translation from the Italian by Michael S. Howard, December 2014

Jean Baptiste Félix Descuret (1795-1871), a French physician, owes his fame essentially to two writings: the first, called Les Merveilles du corps humain (Wonders of the Human Body), published in 1856, focuses on the relationship between medicine and religion, composed for use of treligion and philosophy students. The second, La Médecine des passions ou les passions considérées dans leurs rapports avec les maladies, les lois et la religion (Medicine of the passions, or, The Passions Considered in their Relations to Diseases, the Law and Religion), is much more important, as it appears as one of the earliest studies in the psychosocial field (1). First published in 1841, it contains results derived from Descuret’s observation of of thousands of patients in relation to their passions and vices, evaluated from a medical, religious and economic point of view.

Chapter XII, “Of The Passion of Gambling” (2), presents a thorough investigation of the world of gamblers in France of the 19th century, in which the author shows in statistical tables the proceeds of the administrations of gambling dens, the general statements of criminal justice related to suicides due to gambling, the correctional process, and more.

The Chapter is divided into the following sections:

Its definition, antiquity, universality, and progress in France

Causes

Character and portrait of the gambler

Progress of the passion of gambling; its effects and term

Treatment

This is followed by Observations consisting of four examples:

I - Sad result of the passion of gambling inculcated in a young man by his mother

II - Ruin of a merchant occasioned by his wife's passion for the lottery

III - Suicide of a gambler

IV - A reformed gambler

In the following we report parts of some of the sections listed above

Character and portrait of the gambler

"Look at that maniac seated motionless at a gambling table: you would say that his members want to adhere to it. ...The tetanus-like immobility and stiffness that is observed in most gamblers comes from the concentrated impatience that devours them. In fact the decisions of the game, as quick as they are, seem to them unbearably slow. The time that appears longest to them is certainly that which passes between the falling or rising of the card or dice.

...

Elsewhere, outside his circle, the professed gambler flees society; he prefers to live alone, with his reversals of fortune and bleak unrest; then he experiences the contemplations and terrors of the miser in the face of his treasure. According to the observation of a reformed practictioner, gamblers are affectionate and talkative with each other only. They communicate their joys, their faults, their troubles and their systems, fully successful or abandoned, but their conversation always has the game as its object. They have many friends in the gambling dens, of whom they know neither name nor address, their profession nor their past, nor their present situation. In the street, a gambler never greets a gambler. On the other hand, he rejects the designation of vicious for that of caculator or speculator; the gambler by profession does not admit that he lost (he would disdain this word); he suffered a contrariety [il a subi un écart]. The operation [marche] has consumed all of his capital; he says not that he lost it, but it jumped [a sauté] --a jump that often throws him into the abyss.

It would be as long as it would be difficult to depict all the nuances of this deplorable mania. Its moral physiognomy varies depending on the different species of gamblers; and on the other hand all the contrary feelings that agitate them, destroy them reciprocally, and present only confused and almost imperceptible traits. So there are daring gamblers, for whom loss spurs desire; there are the cowards who tremble even when they have a favorable quarter of an hour; the superstitious, who, wanting to be free of their perplexities, become accustomed to producing chimeras, such as dreams, premonitions, a day of bad luck, unlucky places, neighbors who bring bad luck, etc., etc.; there are also the systematic, who attach themselves to gambling only for speculation; there are the gallant gamblers who free themselves promptly and with great courtesy; the lavish gamblers, who sacrifice their greed to their pride; There are, it is said, benevolent gamblers, who consider their gain as a means of making gifts or largesse (if this last character exists, it must be very rare); finally we see individuals who have at the same time the passions of gambling, wine and women; that above all is a bottomless pit that swallows the largest fortunes. The meeting of these three vices does not take long to brutalize the mind, pervert the heart entirely, and to produce the most grave alterations in health. This last class is the debauched form of gamblers, who are not the least numerous: it proliferates in our big cities and populates prisons and penal colonies, because the disorders to which they abandon themselves lead almost always to crime.

Progress of the passion of gambling; its effects and end

...

“Anyone who cannot resist the first enticement of this harmful pastime kindles a fire he then may not be able to extinguish. Many in the beginning devote only brief moments to it, but soon they give it hours, then days, then entire nights, and insensibly they become passionate gamblers. Then the corruption of those with whom they flock is not slow to take possession of them; for the professional gamblers never come close if not to communicate their vices; and who dares to hazard their company is very near to resembling them: so Mme. Deshoulières has said, with as much truth as grace:

Le désir de gagner, qui nuit et jour occupe,

Est un dangereux aiguillon:

Souvent, quoique l’esprit, quoique le cœur soit bon,

On commence par étre dupe,

On finit par étre fripon.

The desire of gain, which occupies night and day,

Is a dangerous goad;

Often, although mind and heart are good,

One begins by being a dupe,

One ends by being a rogue.

"I would not advise anyone,” says La Bruyere, “to be a villain; but I say, it it will be licit only to the villain to give body and soul to gambling; the honest man must abstain; it is too great a childishness to expose oneself to large losses".

Infamy is not the only end of this lamentable passion: it very commonly ends with misery and melancholy, sometimes with madness, murder, and suicide.

We note the following inscription made for a gambling den (translator’s note: “antre” in French, “antro” in Italian, meaning both “den” and “cave”):

Ici deux portes a cet antre

L'une s'ouvre à l'espoir, l'autre au crime, à la mort;

C'est par la premiere qu'on entre

Et par la seconde qu'on sort

Two doors here in this cave:

One opens to hope, the other to crime and death;

It is by the first that one enters

And by the second that one leaves.

B. Levraud has remarked that gamblers were particularly subject to congestion of the abdominal viscera, also to aneurysmic diseases of the heart or of the aortal arch.

In this regard, we report, from the first volume of this work, the story of the death of a gambler owing to the rupture of an aneurysmic tumor of the aorta:

"Health, fortune, credit and honor were swallowed one after the other by gambling. For a long stretch he believed he was favored by fortune: but this was only an illusion; two nights were enough to ruin it all. For a year he vegetated in the capital, in the midst of that crowd of idlers, whose existence is a problem, when a very lucrative employment put the lid on poverty, and ministered the means to calm his feverish agitation and the violent palpitations he felt. Already his benumbed limbs began to revive their former force, already the freshness of color heralded a notable improvement in his constitution, when, carried away as a spectator at a gambling den, the sight of gold is enough to return to him all the fire of his passion. The next day he returns to the game, not as spectator but as player, and his luck having been propitious, he continues to play with more fury than ever. In less than a month after he returned to his old habits, one morning he is found dead in his bed as a result of a ruptured aneuryic tumor of the aorta. The emotions of the game had killed him" (3).

We return to Progress of the passion of gambling; its effects and end.

“Doctor Véron has observed many whose health was perfect all the days of winning, and while every day of loss they suffered internal spasms accompanied by nausea, vomiting, headaches, a raging thirst and a general malaise.

...

“...This cruel passion of gambling follows them into the prisons and sometimes leads to excesses that smack of dementia. We mention prisoners who, having lost in an instant the product of a week’s work, were not afraid to indulge their passion, betting in advance the bread that had to feed them for a month, two months, and even three months; and what is even more surprising, is to encounter men so bestial as to keep watch, during the distribution of food, on those who have already received their share; to gain their food, not leaving until they have snatched the morsel of bread from those that cannot do without it. I will add one last remark which shows to what point the delirium of love of gambling can blind a rational being. The doctors of the central house of Mont-St.-Michel observed a convict who gambled with such ardor that in the infirmary, sick as he was, he abandoned to the luck of the game his ration of broth or wine that was necessary for him to restore his exhausted forces. This unfortunate died of inanition [the exhausted condition caused that results from lack of food and water].

Tanzini tells of a case that is unbelievable, of which he was assured by a trustworthy person. A certain gentleman L ... who in many years lost by gambling a rich heritage, all isolated and penniless, to sate his passion, he made to run or rather walk in a kind of race some lice (what a state he was in!) and bet with himself that one would win rather than another. If he guessed right he was delighted; if not, he cursed like a maniac, and with a pin pierced the one remaining behind, showering it with insults."

Observations

I. Sad consequences of the passion of gambling inculcated in a young man by his mother.

Sentenced to eight years in irons for forgery, the unhappy D ... has been atoning for his guilt in penal servitude at Toulon. This young man had received a sufficienty careful education and was of good character, except that he had inherited from his mother a passion for gambling, pushed to the point of monomania. Here is the confession he made to Doctor Lauvergne, chief physician of the hospital of the convicts in that city:

"My mother,” he said, “separated from her husband who was serving in arms, did not leave the cards, and I remember that after long nights, whether she won or lost she kept me awake tempting me, disinterested then, with the fortunes of gambling. Yes, doctor, the cards were my nurse; though I can say that winning in the game we got by. When my mother lost, we ate a little dry bread, not without tears; but the joy and happiness were late in coming to cheer us up when the wind started to blow favorably. The cards are real Sirens, whatever good and whatever ill they gave me. Would you believe that the sight of a Page of Hearts, even when not in the context of gambling, produced in my brain more magic than the great paintings of Raphael in Rome could work in me? Would you believe that I very nearly died of apoplexy twenty times, when I was sure of making a good hit, and fortune in her finest did me a trick?

“The forgery that led me here came from a damned ace that pledged my word, and that of a loyal gambler is sacred. I sacrificed my honor to pay for the infidelity of a card that I believed was in the hand of my partner; my eyes had read badly into his. Oh! the passion of the game, as I have experienced it, it is an evil from hell: it takes hold of all a man's faculties and puts them all into the risky search for a card. Gambling, to me, is a fury that is sometimes lovable, but most often intractable and treacherous: I pursued her then as an angry and passionate man. While the game was going on, I held my right hand straight to my heart, which was leaping with impatience, I barely contained it, and when fortune was against me, it was not uncommon for me to turn my despair against myself; as by a murderous instinct, I tore the skin of my heart with my nails. Look, here are the scars of a gambler." And saying these words, D ... showed, in the region of his heart, deep linear scars attesting to its former torture.

“For several years,” Lauvergne added, “D ... has had a horror of cards: viewing them has the same effect as water to a hydrophobic, or as opium to one who has been very nearly poisoned by this narcotic."

“III. Suicide of a gambler

“Every year the annals of crime record, on average, nine ruined gamblers who resorted to suicide to escape the shame. I reproduce here, therefore, only one instance out of many of this deplorable end.

In 1853, a young inhabitant of the provinces was about to contract a marriage of inclination that would assure his happiness. He went to Paris to buy wedding gifts and collect several considerable sums placed in public funds, intending to buy a property close to the chateau of his future father in law. After completing his business, the provincial was about to leave, when he met a friend whom he had not seen since leaving school, who invited him to dinner. He accepts joyfully; it is also a good thing when one is young and all smiles, to find a childhood friend with whom to be able to talk of the past! The friend, who is nothing more than a swindler, leads him into a remote area and introduces him into a house where are found a dozen guests, including several young women. It is an evening meal of beautiful appearance. The food is excellent, the conversation animated; the sparkling wine from Champagne flows in abundance, and already his brain is blurred, wanting to disarm him of his reason. After dinner they all move into the great hall; green cloths are spread out on the tables. The young provincial is invited to take the cards; he agrees without suspicion. Fortune favors him at first, according to the fraudulent tactics practiced in those engagements; then when the bait has produced its effect, when the fever of the game is now in its final paroxysm, his luck changed, the gambler's purse is empty. He opens his wallet, which for safety measure he carried on him; the bank notes come out in succession and pass in the end to the pockets of the cheaters. The unfortunate then leaves the fatal house with despair in his soul. What to do! Impossible to conceal this breach made in his fortune. Indeed, just the revelation of such a mistake would be enough to break off the wedding! Here forever is gone every happiness! With this sad and late thought, he returns home and blows his brains out.

We are assured that at the news of his tragic end, the betrothed girl became ill and did not heal but succumbed.

“IV. A reformed gambler.

"In about 1817, Alfonse B ..., who belonged to a family of honorable origin but little favored by fortune, came to Paris in the age of nineteen to pursue the study of law. Recognizing the sacrifices that his parents imposed upon themselves to create a position for him, he gave himself to work at first with intense ardor, and he was able to resist all the temptations with which he was assaulted. He spent a year in this way; Alfonse seemed to find happiness in this laudable condition, when he was invited to dine at the house of a man from his home town, who had remitted to him three months of his pension. After dinner, during which generous wine had not been spared, the young guest, free from suspicion, was led into a gambling den, where, fascinated by the sight of mounds of gold put on display on the tablecloths, expressed a kind of astonishment. The one who accompanies him whispers in his ear of the huge gains of several gamblers, speaks warmly of chances of fortune open to those who know how to risk something at the right time, says that he is in the mood, and ends up asking to borrow the hundred crowns he had remitted to him, promising to quadruple it and share the winnings with him. Puzzled, trembling with fear for his money, the young B ... does not dare refuse the request of the borrower, only begs him in a low voice not to risk the entire sum. But soon this sum is actually quadrupled, and the scholar Alfonse, thrilled with joy, by different fortunate bets that he attempts in turn, is transformed in a moment into a frantic gambler who must, so to speak, wrest power from the theater of his exploits.

The reflections, the losses that followed, even breaking with the villain who dragged him into the abyss, failed to vanquish in him this fatal passion; he is abandoned there for eight straight years. Finally, excess of poverty forced him to accept a job in a house of commerce, where they ignored the vice that had made his life an insult. Indeed, up to then, the unfortunate had never forgotten the principles of honor due to his upbringing. One day, when he is carrying bank notes belonging to his employer, he enters unwittingly into a gambling house, where again he is attracted to his fatal inclination. He is invited to play a hand; he refuses, considering that having lost everything the previous night, he does not have any money at his disposal. They insist, they press him; and here a violent temptation surges in his mind: with a few favorable bets, the losses can be repaired ... Taking his wallet convulsively between his fingers, he is about to open it, when an inner voice shouts from the depths of his heart: STOP! and he stops suddenly; a cold sweat bathes his forehead; about to faint, he throws at the table a look of terror, and staggers out from the fatal den, where his honor was exposed to such imminent danger. Once outside, he regains his strength and a feeling of unspeakable happiness; this first triumph obtained over a passion that demeans him in his own eyes proves to him that he will now be able to be defeat it entirely. From this moment the veil is torn; a new life unfolds before him; certainly he will atone for his past, remaining in a dark positions; but the title of honest man, irreproachable man, will reward him for everything. These promises that B ... made to himself, he has kept religiously; never from that day forward has he played a game of cards or dice; and what makes it all the more admirable still is, that, having married, he was forced, to support his family, to take a job in a gambling house, where he remained for many years without departing once from his courageous resolution. Let us add that B ... was at the same time cured of a disease of the heart occasioned by the excitement of the game. "

In conclusion, we report what the lawyer Augustus Lipparini wrote about the underlying causes of pauperism (4) in Italy in the mid-19th century. Among the many reasons, the author also identifies vices, including that of gambling, which drives people to look for easy money without having to work. His analysis, which also indulges in psychological introspection, although aimed at highlighting the problems of an economic nature, emphasizes very clearly the emotional pressure of all the gamblers constantly obsessed with cards.

"We shall examine briefly some of the principal vices to which men give themselves up; let us look at the violent and unbridled passions to which they give their labor with light-heartedness and pleasure, so as to secure a concept of maximum influence in the material and moral ruin of their existence. See, for example, the gambler at different stages of his indomitable passion. He feels driven by the mania of making money without working; the vertigo of gold amassed effortlessly fascinates him, chains him and overwhelms him in a chasm without bottom and without shore. With his heart corrupted, his mind clouded, he relies with rapture on the whims of fate. He knows very well that this abominable vice is his destruction; he knows that his family will be reduced to a miserable condition consuming everything of substance; it does not matter; forgeting the tenderest affections, removing every delicate sentiment, there he runs to a table, sits trembling, and resolutely abandons himself to the lust of the game. With red cheeks, with eyes on fire, with mind overwhelemed by a thousand conflicting emotions, he hunts, at the mercy of chance, for considerable sums; in trepidaton, breathing laboriously, he awaits the uncovering of a card, the roll of a die; it is to gain all or lose all: it depends on a combination from a chance accident, the good or bad outcome of the game!

“But fortune is adverse for him: by poorly divined bad luck he loses in one stroke an important hoard; he finds himself denuded of a substance that formed a large part of his estate back in an earlier time. Then the passion exalts him and rejects disdainfully all the good advice of reason, suffocates angrily that intimate sense that warns him of the evil he commits, crushing in his heart with mocking laughter any remorse of conscience. Apparently stoic, he gets overexcited and throws himself more and more into ruin and an uncontrollable frenzy, betting with increasing energy double the original sum in order avenge the losses made. Here is the decisive moment: the cards are shuffled, picked up, distributed, revealed; at that moment, more than ever, his heart, soul, senses, and his whole being are in the game that he follows closely and impatiently. An iniquitous fate seems to predominate over fortune; an adverse star haunts him: he has lost again. Crushed, humiliated and confused, he looks without seeing, listens without understanding, and a convulsive and nervous alteration paralyzes all his feelings and gives him a painful vertigo that he tries to conceal with apparent calm, under which he wants uselessly to hide the torture of his heart, the despair of his soul.

“Pale, his eyes livid, with incoherent thoughts, he returns at dawn to his home in the bosom of his own family, where he is offered the enchanting spectacle of gentle little children who sleep in the calm of soft feathers unaware of the misery that threatens them due to the unnatural vices of a father. In these awaken the affections of the heart, and at a glance measure the greatness of his guilt and the consequences resulting from it. How to repair it? There are only two courses to choose from: work hard, or again tempt fortune; but the first is no longer possible; the past emotions, the habits of a life of idleness, the route to every vice, has extinguished the taste, the tendency of working; there remains the second, however; fate having taken from him every possible honest resource, he is forced to resort to cunning; the game is no longer conducted by chance but by art; it is no longer a vice but a crime. With a vile and depraved heart, the gambler steals from the inexperienced, those who in good faith have the misfortune to fall into his hands, in their turn denuded. This is how this abominable vice makes into gamblers by profession even many distinguished persons, which, in addition to painful economic hardship, dehumanizes the heart to every kind affection, sweeping away in mud and shame their name and honor. After that it is easy to guess the result: gambling helps to foster vice and is harmful both to the individual and society, since it produces an unfruitful movement of huge and important capital."(5).

Directly related to this article is the essay Leonardo e le Carte (Il mondo dei giocatori di carte fra perseveranti e redenti - secc. XV-XIX) [“Leonardo and the Cards: The world of the card players, between the steadfast and the redeemed - sections XV-XIX”, currently in Italian only].

2 – The Chapter “Of the Passion of Gambling” occupies pages 224-251 of the Italian translation, pp. 240-263 of the original 1841 edition. In the 1860 edition, with many additions, it is vol. 2, pp. 298-331. In the original French, the sections are:

4 - Pauperism: the economic and social phenomenon that at certain times large sections of the population are affected by poverty as a result of a combination of various factors (such as scarcity of natural resources and capital, poor spirit of initiative, poor distribution of wealth etc.) or of exceptional circumstances (war, famine, economic crisis, acute inflation, etc.), which can give rise to situations of serious economic depression and unemployment, or worsen existing imbalances (See Pauperismo, Enciclopedia Treccani.it).